TEMECULA: Sale benefits school's art program

Last week's Art Fair at Crowne Hill Elementary School in Temecula appeared to have been a success thanks to tremendous support from parents who turned out to buy their children's framed artwork and boost funding for the school's art program.

Art teacher Tess Crawford of Temecula teaches three days a week at Crowne Hill, one of the only Southwest County public schools to have a dedicated art teacher. Students in every grade have art class for an hour every other week, and students learn and practice a wide range of art skills and techniques, including watercolor painting, pastels, form, texture and color.

The lessons culminate each year with an Art Fair after school where parents can buy a framed piece of their child's artwork for $20. All the money raised ---- about $5,000 last year ---- benefits the school's art program, paying for high-end art supplies for the students.

"They have multiple projects they work on all year and a featured art project, and that's what this is," said Shana Reed, a first-grade teacher at Crowne Hill and the school's art coordinator. She was speaking at the Art Fair held Wednesday afternoon, where student art projects were on display in the multipurpose room.

Parents browsed and enjoyed a show-like festival that included face painting ---- courtesy of a couple of girls from Great Oak High ---- a graffiti wall where students could draw, and live surf rock music from a band of Gardner Middle School students called "The Last Minute Rush."

Beth Kruckeberg took home works by her son Colin, a first-grader, and her daughter Cambria, a second-grader, that the kids' dad had purchased so the children could give the art to their mother for Mother's Day. She said her ex-husband did the same thing last year.

"It's fantastic," Kruckeberg said of the fair. "The art is so good. It's so professional. They're blessed to have an art teacher."

Brigette Garrett was happy to purchase her daughter's artwork.

"It's a great way to raise money," she said. "At least we're getting something back."

Another mom, Erika Hessler, bought artwork made by son Grant, a second-grader, and daughter Madyson, a fifth-grader.

"We buy it every year and hang it up in the loft. We have a progressive art wall. We watch through the years what they do," Hessler said, calling the art teacher "amazing."

Hessler was one of many parents who said they felt lucky that their children's elementary school has an art teacher at a time when so many schools have cut art instruction altogether. Many parents credited Crowne Hill Principal Karen Johnson for her commitment to keeping art classes and said they gladly pay the $20 for their child's art to help support the art program.

"There's no money for art in the budget so we have to save the arts any way we can," Reed said. She said about 300 parents indicated this year they would buy their child's art, and most pre-paid.

Crawford spent the afternoon running around, helping parents, encouraging students to draw on the paper graffiti wall, and running a slideshow that showed the artworks and explained the projects and the techniques the children used.

"It's fun. The kids love it. They are just happy to do art," Crawford said.

Looking over all the children's framed works on the display tables, Reed smiled and said, "This stuff warms the soul."